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Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Small Farmers Are Struggling With Trumpian Chaos—and Bracing for More
Fielding phone calls from concerned growers has become a commonplace occurrence for Nick Levendofsky, the executive director of the Kansas Farmers Union. The upheaval in the U.S. Department of Agriculture since President Donald Trump took office in January has left many farmers with unfulfilled contracts and broken commitments. Grants that once offered vital financial lifelines have been frozen. Programs that once provided assistance and aid have been eliminated. Uncertainty about the future has become the bumper crop. 'It's just been a barrage from the very beginning,' said Levendofsky of the changes made by the Trump administration. 'We were getting phone calls from not just members of ours, but farmers and ranchers in general, saying, 'What do we do?'' He recalled a recent conversation with the owner of a vineyard in northeastern Kansas who had been promised a loan to build solar panels and an electric vehicle charger. But with USDA freezing funding for the renewable energy projects guaranteed by the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act, the farmer was stuck with the bill for the already completed project. 'He had a $55,000 USDA-guaranteed loan that now USDA said, 'We're not going to pay,'' said Levendofsky. In April, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to release the previously authorized frozen funds. That same month, however, the USDA canceled the Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities, a separate grant program intended to promote sustainable farming and forestry practices. The administration repackaged that grant as 'Advancing Markets for Producers,' with existing agreements under review. The Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association, or MOFGA, was among the organizations affected by these changes. The group had a multiyear grant from the Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities program, said executive director Sarah Alexander. Along with another Maine-based group, MOFGA was slated to work with 200 farms in the state to assess whether they met certain criteria to receive funds for improving climate resiliency. 'That money has gone away, and that's been really devastating,' said Alexander. 'That's a really direct impact that's both on our budget and work this year with our staff's [ability] to provide direct training and technical assistance to those farms, but then also the farms ultimately losing out on that money.' The USDA announced in March that it would issue up to $10 billion in relief for commodity producers for the 2024 crop year, and the White House has mulled additional financial assistance for farmers to mitigate potential effects from tariffs. During Trump's first term, USDA doled out roughly $23 billion in aid to farmers amid retaliatory Chinese tariffs on certain American imports, including wheat, soybeans, and corn. Given the current uncertainty surrounding the tariffs that Trump can and may impose—and the status of ongoing trade negotiations with China—it's unclear what kind of financial assistance farmers can expect this time around, if any. But Erin Foster West, policy director at the National Young Farmers Coalition, said that programs intended to help commodity farmers have less of an impact for smaller-scale producers. Meanwhile, the USDA has eliminated the Local Food Purchase Assistance program, which connected small farmers to community food pantries and anti-hunger organizations, as well as the Local Food for Schools program, which allowed schools and childcare facilities to purchase food from local farms. West said that the LFPA had been particularly helpful for members of her organization at the beginning of their careers. 'Many were using that as sort of a bridge as they were growing or expanding, and didn't expect to have that forever but expected to have it for maybe a few more years,' said West. 'Now it feels like the rug has just been pulled out from underneath them without any notice, without any support, without any communication.' Producers also highlight the stalling of farm bill negotiations in Congress as a major source of worry. Typically approved every five years, the farm bill governs the country's nutrition, agricultural, conservation, and forestry policy and is historically passed on a bipartisan basis. However, the 2018 farm bill has been extended twice—most recently at the end of last year—and discussions among lawmakers on crafting the new measure have been largely stagnant. Meanwhile, some of the agenda items that would typically be included in the farm bill are instead being addressed by the One Big, Beautiful Bill Act, the massive Republican legislative package including tax breaks and dramatic cuts to government spending. The bill, which narrowly passed in the House last week, slashes nearly $300 billion from nutrition programs, but includes roughly $60 billion for farm safety-net programs. The measure—which is moving through a process known as 'budget reconciliation' to avoid the 60-vote threshold for approving legislation in the upper chamber—is now under consideration in the Senate. The changes to SNAP include tightened work requirements, which the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated would lead to more than three million recipients losing their benefits in an average month. The bill would also push more of the cost of SNAP onto states, which the CBO estimates could lead to reduced or loss of benefits for around 1.3 million people. Alexander argued that the farm bill was the preferred venue for hashing out nutrition and farm policy. 'They are two sides of the same coin because the food that we're producing in this country should be what is feeding our citizens,' she said. 'SNAP at its essence should be supporting what our farmers are producing.' Farmers and their communities are thus concerned not only about changes in the USDA, but how that upheaval might be compounded by changes to SNAP. Nichelle Harriott, policy director at HEAL Food Alliance, a coalition of organizations that work directly with farming and food systems, said that member groups were now floundering amid the uncertainty on the executive and legislative level. 'We have a member in Georgia, for instance, who the entirety of their work is to ensure that vulnerable children in their communities have access to healthy nutrition. And of course, with the absence of federal funding to do that work—as well as the impending cuts of SNAP—they are really seeing increasing challenges,' said Harriott. If would-be SNAP recipients do not have the benefits to spend at their grocery stores, she said, and small producers also cannot share their crops, there will be 'a lot of ripple effects in local communities.' Levendofsky expressed frustration that many of the people who would be most affected by this double whammy of changes live in rural areas—both producers and SNAP recipients. Rural Americans have consistently higher rates of food insecurity, and non-metro areas have higher rates of participation in SNAP than their urban counterparts. 'We're hurting the very people who have voted for so many of these folks in Congress, and even folks that voted for this administration,' said Levendofsky. 'I'm nervous about what's coming because I think, especially, the folks that supported this administration in the last election didn't feel like they were going to be affected. I think they probably felt like this was, you know, a 'safe' bet or vote for them, and that it wasn't gonna be a problem. Well, it's about to be a problem.'
Yahoo
24-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Federal grant cuts have a big impact on New Mexico nonprofits, new report finds
May 24—New Mexico nonprofits are particularly reliant on federal dollars, so federal funding freezes have had a dramatic impact in the state, according to a new report commissioned by three New Mexico foundations. It is typical for funding patterns to change to align with a new presidential administration's priorities. But the Trump administration has paused or canceled an unusually wide range of already approved federal grants — at times grant funds that have already been partially spent and were awarded by Congress — because they do not comply with its agenda. That includes money for scientific research, dollars meant to help ranchers make their operations more efficient, and arts program funding. Approximately 37% of nonprofits in New Mexico rely on government grants, according to the nonpartisan report commissioned by Santa Fe Community Foundation, Thornburg Foundation and Anchorum Health Foundation and authored by The Grant Plant Inc. To replace federal dollars that have been eliminated nationwide, private foundations would have to increase giving by 282%, the report found. "This kind of constant change is creating deep, deep uncertainty for a lot of nonprofits," said Allan Oliver, president of the Thornburg Foundation. A survey of 200 nonprofits operating in New Mexico found that 20% got at least half of their funding from federal grants. The sectors most reliant on these federal dollars were education, youth and family services, housing and environmental organizations. Organizations are especially concerned about receiving the payouts for already obligated funds, the report found. In New Mexico, 54% of federal dollars for active grant awards have been paid out, meaning close to half could be withheld or canceled. 'Tough decisions' New Mexico nonprofits are rapidly adapting to the shifting grant landscape, the report says. The survey found that 89% of organizations surveyed are developing contingencies to operate without federal grants. "Private philanthropy can never replace federal funding, but well applied investments can make a significant difference," the report says. Quivira Coalition is one of the nonprofits that lost federal grants. The organization, focused on regenerative agriculture, lost its largest grant, a $3.9 million Partnership for Climate Smart Commodities. The funds were frozen in late January, and the nonprofit was notified the grant would be terminated in April, said Interim Executive Director Leah Ricci. The five-year contract began in 2023 and was focused on helping livestock producers take waste products such as carcasses or livestock waste, and turn them into something like compost to improve soil health. The original goal was to enroll 50 livestock producers; when the grant was frozen 13 livestock producers hailing from New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado were enrolled. The Biden-era program was overhauled into a new Advancing Markets for Producers initiative, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced in April. "It became clear that the majority of these projects had sky-high administration fees which in many instances provided less than half of the federal funding directly to farmers," said a USDA news release. Some projects from the canceled grants were automatically enrolled in the new program, if they committed at least 65% of federal funds and directly paid to producers. Other projects can reapply. Quivera is unlikely to reapply for the grant, Ricci said. "One of the issues is that USDA is not allowing any other types of producer support to be included in the calculation towards that 65%, and so there's all sorts of other support that we provide, like providing producers with grazing management, technical assistance or marketing support," Ricci said. Instead, Quivera is moving forward with a revised version of the project, supporting the 13 already enrolled producers with funding from donors and foundation supporters. The nonprofit is grateful to have diverse income, allowing it to work without the federal dollars, but Ricci thinks some of the smaller, more community driven nonprofits may have trouble continuing their work without the federal dollars. "I have talked with a few foundation funders who have said very candidly that they're having to make tough decisions about, do I give this $50,000 to this organization that really critically needs it, knowing that that organization might not make it through this year? Or do I have to make the hard choice to pull back and give that money to someone else because we're worried about organizations not existing beyond this year?" Ricci said.
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Climate-Beneficial Fibers Were Gaining Traction. Then Trump Happened.
From the time it kicked off in 2023, the Climate Beneficial Fiber Partnership worked to do precisely that: link up a slew of stakeholders to bolster the production of so-called 'climate-smart cotton and wool to build agricultural resilience, regenerate soil health and expand economic opportunities for American growers. This wasn't some flash-in-the-pan pilot scheme, either. Led by the National Center for Appropriate Technology and its five partners—the Carbon Cycle Institute, Colorado State University Department of Soil and Crop Sciences, Fibershed, Seed2Shirt and New York Textile Lab—the project spanned 135 farms and ranches, amounting to some 2.1 million acres, across California, Georgia, Indiana, Montana, New York, North Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee and Wyoming. More from Sourcing Journal Will Trump Tariffs Help or Hurt U.S. Garment Workers? $2 Billion of Home Textiles Up in the Air in India Amid Tariff Tumult Why REI Retracted Support of Interior Secretary Doug Burgum And if ambitions were big, then so was the backing. A $30 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Partnership for Climate-Smart Commodities provided enrolled producers with technical assistance, reimbursement and incentive payments to plan, verify and implement whole-farm greenhouse-gas reduction and carbon sequestration roadmaps. The goal was to sequester an estimated 3 million metric tons of carbon dioxide over the grant period by reducing synthetic fertilizer application, increasing soil organic matter and boosting water-holding capacity. It sought to build markets, bolster rural communities and prioritize engagement with traditionally underserved producers, particularly Black families in the southern states. At least that was the thrust of the original five-year plan. If the freezing of already committed federal money at the outset of the second Trump administration wasn't enough to derail efforts only two years in, surely the cancellation of the Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities in mid-April has. While the USDA says that select projects may still qualify for review if they can demonstrate that a 'significant amount of the federal funds awarded will go to farmers,' among other things, Rebecca Burgess, executive director of Fibershed, a California nonprofit that focuses on building regional fiber systems, isn't hopeful. 'Fibershed and partners literally met all of the new requirements, minus the fact we drove 62 percent of funding versus 65 percent to growers,' she said. 'Now all partners have to reapply, which will take administrative time—meetings, agreements, document creation—and we've already done that, and so there's no efficiency in having to do the admin all over again. It took two-and-a-half years to be awarded and onboarded last time. There's nothing efficient in this approach.' The axing of the Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities, which the USDA says has now been 'reformed and overhauled' into the Advancing Markets for Producers initiative, was far from unexpected. President Donald Trump has publicly and repeatedly excoriated the science of climate change, which he has dubbed a scam or hoax. Since his inauguration, the White House has launched an all-out assault on the global climate consensus by halting government studies, terminating employees en masse, rolling back environmental regulations and purging references to global warming from federal websites. He has staffed his cabinet with like-minded people who share his antipathy for the previous administration and hew closely to the party line. People, in fact, like Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins, who referred to the Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities as a 'Biden-era climate slush fund.' 'The Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities initiative was largely built to advance the green new scam at the benefit of NGOs, not American farmers,' Rollins said in a statement. 'The concerns of farmers took a backseat during the Biden administration. During my short time as secretary, I have heard directly from our farmers that many of the USDA partnerships are overburdened by red tape, have ambiguous goals and require complex reporting that push farmers onto the sidelines. We are correcting these mistakes and redirecting our efforts to set our farmers up for an unprecedented era of prosperity.' And if there's perhaps one thing the administration wants to dismantle more is any initiative bearing the whiff of 'woke' through the promotion of D.E.I., or diversity, equity and inclusion. 'Black,' 'BIPOC' and 'marginalized'—all foundational concepts for the Climate Beneficial Fiber Partnership, which aimed to dedicate at least 40 percent of program benefits to producers who have traditionally been left on the sidelines—are also just some of the words that the Trump administration has ordered to swerve in grant proposals and contracts. 'When you look at the percentage of the resources that go to Black farmers across the U.S., it is staggeringly low,' said Tameka Peoples, founder of Seed2Shirt, the country's first Black-woman-owned vertically integrated apparel manufacturing and print-on-demand company. 'We're losing land at hundreds of thousands of acres a year. That is counter-social justice. That is targeting. So we need to stand up and fight for what's right as it relates to farmers who have been historically underserved and, quite frankly, left out of the larger climate conversation.' By now, the harm from lost funds has already rippled out, washing away financial certainty that both businesses and farms rely on for long-term planning. Peoples said that the funding gap hasn't only affected the livelihoods of farmers, some of whom have been cultivating cotton for five-plus generations and 'went out on a limb' to implement the regenerative practices, but it is also an existential threat to her 10-person team. 'When you're CEO, you're like, 'O.K., well, I'll just sacrifice my stuff, and we'll figure out how long we can do this with resources in reserve,' she said. 'But at the end of the day, we would like for payment terms to be reviewed and honored.' Even the funding pause that preceded the program's cancellation was perilous because everyone was expected to 'keep working without pay,' said Laura Sansone, who created New York Textile Lab to support regenerative farming practices through a wool purchasing cooperative in New York State called the Carbon Farming Network. When funding was still up in the air, she had to forgo compensation, even digging into her personal pockets to pay her carbon farm planner. That the farms New York Textile Lab works with will still have their animals, and the animals will keep producing fiber, is one thing, Sansone said. Whether it'll still be able to provide the technical assistance and cost sharing to mitigate the problems of constant resource extraction is another question. More than shoring up climate resilience, she said, the Climate Beneficial Fiber Partnership has been about growing 'deep roots into our communities and having direct accountability to the land and the people and the animals.' 'I don't see how we can really follow through with that; it's very difficult without the funding,' said Sansone, who also works as a textile designer. 'We're trying to build contingency plans to raise money, but this is a lot of extra work to take on. So, on top of keeping everything afloat, I will now have to pivot and try to find funding. It's difficult, but all of us in the program are going to start to lose employees. And it's the farmers who will be losing out the most.' Hearing the government's attitude toward climate change reminds Benjamin Wood, owner of a 140-acre farm just outside Waterville, N.Y., that raises sheep and vegetables, of the story of King Canute, who 'sat on the beach and ordered the tide not to come in. It's coming in anyway.' Trying to ignore scientific reality is not only futile, in other words, but also foolhardy. 'I directly relate these animal disease problems—like the avian flu and the price of eggs—to climate change,' he said. 'I think that's a direct link. I think people need to understand that our beef cattle herd is down 20 percent because two years ago we had a serious drought in the West, and a lot of them had to be sold off, and they haven't been replaced. So all of that is going to affect our production and the price of food for the average consumer.' The extra cash from the Climate Beneficial Fiber Partnership, Wood said, helped pay for improvements that his regular income couldn't, such as new water lines, pasture reseeding and tree planting. He'll still keep doing what he was doing, but the pace will be much slower. What's arguably worse for farmers are the whipsawing conditions driven by Trump's brewing trade war. If there's another blow they can't take at a time of rising input costs and falling commodity prices, Wood said, it's the tariffs that are already stoking price increases. 'A lot of people don't know this, but Canada really supplies us with potash, which is an important nutrient for all crops, and they're just tacking on a tariff—first 25 percent, now 10 percent—which is going to make it very expensive, which in turn, will cut down production,' he said. 'There's another 25 percent tariff on steel. That's going to raise the cost of farm machinery, which is already out of reach for a lot of people. So there are a lot of ramifications here that the normal person doesn't see.' Tariffs nearly ruined farmers during Trump's first go-around at the presidency. The only thing that saved them from complete annihilation was a $23 billion federal bailout program. In what appeared like an acknowledgement of what went down before, the USDA announced last month that it would be shelling out up to $10 billion to agricultural growers through the Emergency Commodity Assistance Program for the 2024 crop year. As far as Burgess is concerned, however, this is a short-term distraction. 'He's paying $84 an acre to cotton growers for just a one-time payment,' she said of Trump. 'Ours was a five-year catalytic grant. It was not the dole. It was about building markets that normalized climate-resilient agriculture through pricing structures and verification and certification. But this was a threatening grant to this administration, because it built an alliance between groups who are marginalized or felt marginalized and would rebalance things ever so slightly.' What frustrates Burgess beyond the progress they were making—'you had Black farmers just starting to gain trust and conservative, more libertarian ranchers and farmers also going, 'Maybe climate beneficial isn't so bad,' she said—is that the Climate Beneficial Fiber Partnership would have been stepping stone to restoring the country's decimated infrastructure for processing fiber and textiles by creating what she calls 'short-distance supply chains.' Burgess pointed to microfactories like Unspun, which is 'not coming out of China or Mexico but out of the Bay Area.' 'I'm really excited about marrying some of those vertically integrated, very high-tech, late-stage value chain technologies like Unspun and getting them the yarn they need,' she said. 'Right now, we can't produce the yarn they need from our farms, which are literally an hour-and-a-half from their technology center. So those are the things I was hoping and I'm still hoping to do.' Heidi Barr knows the feeling. For the past five years, the PA Flax Project co-founder and CEO has been working to revive the flax-for-linen industry in Pennsylvania. This would involve more than simply ramping up acreage for the climate-friendly plant, which requires little to no chemical inputs or irrigation and helps improve soil health through the aerating properties of its deep root system, she said. The last flax processor in the United States shuttered some 60 years ago after it was no longer able to keep pace with cheaper European and Asian imports. Recreating the infrastructure that would transform flax into linen is a much harder lift. The bulk of the PA Flax Project's $1.7 million funding, divvied up over three years, also comes from the USDA, albeit through the Organic Market Development Grant, which is still in a holding pattern. The organization was just about to go into the mill construction stage when it learned the government would no longer be reimbursing its expenses. It's had to lay off two staff members and pause contractual work with third-party consultants. Farmers also can't plant crops without the commitment to see them through harvest. The suspension of this work at such a crucial juncture appears at odds with the Trump administration's 'America First' policy to reshore domestic manufacturing. By 2030, the mill could provide $6 million in annual revenue, 16 full-time jobs for administration and mill employees and opportunities for at least 100 farmers in the region, perhaps even as far north as Canada. 'It's kind of a no-brainer for a very modest investment,' Barr said. 'But the other reality is that it doesn't matter, because if this funding freeze continues and we cannot raise the money to fill the gap, we will have to cease operations,' she said. 'Losing the momentum at this moment is devastating. You can't just turn the faucet back on and fill the glass. It will take time to build up again.' Finding alternative sources of funding won't be easy. State grants are an option, though many of them are tied to larger federal aid. While private philanthropy is another option, competition will be tougher than ever. Apparel and home furnishing brands that source textiles could also step up. Indeed, retailers such as Everlane and Carhartt have started to sponsor American farms transitioning to climate-beneficial cotton in strategic bursts. Their role now, Peoples said, is more critical than ever. 'We just need more of them—maybe a coalition of the willing at this point,' she said. 'When you're in climate work and when you're in community work, the impact is for generations. We're talking about changing people's lives and changing lands. And so if we can't do this work anymore, the planet will suffer over time.' Peoples doesn't want to call any brands out. That's not her style. But she wants them to know that while smallholder farmers are used to doing a lot with a little, the United States is in danger of losing them altogether. And, with that, their intentional stewardship of the land. 'I'm calling any brand in that wants to see a change in this space to be like, 'Let's figure it out and let's work together,'' she said. 'Either way, I know Seed2Shirt isn't waiting. We can't afford to. Science tells us it's getting worse, and if we don't do something now, we don't know the type of world we'll be able to hand over to our children.'
Yahoo
17-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
USDA abruptly halts $59 million grant to University of Idaho
Apr. 16—The University of Idaho took a gut punch earlier this week when the U.S. Department of Agriculture abruptly terminated a $59 million grant, which would have pumped money into Gem State farmers to boost the marketing of most of the crops grown there. The grant, which was the largest in school history, was canceled in a message sent by the USDA on Sunday. By Monday morning, university officials informed 26 employees they no longer had jobs, said Sanford Eigenbrode, a university-distinguished professor at the UI College of Agricultural and Life Sciences. "That's how they came to work on Monday. It's not like you have three weeks to close this down. It was, 'You are done,'" Eigenbrode said. The job cuts included 13 graduate students, three post-doctoral fellowships and 10 others, who either had full- or part-time positions. The terminated grant also severed partnerships with the Coeur d'Alene and Nez Perce tribes, The Nature Conservancy of Idaho, the Desert Mountain Grass Fed Beef cooperative and several soil conservation districts. The grant had been funded to UI through the USDA's Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities program. Idaho's winning bid was titled Innovative Agriculture and Marketing Partnership project and Eigenbrode was the co-director of the program. The USDA letter that announced the grant's termination also noted that Idaho could resubmit a request for funding, but the USDA already has changed the name of the funding program from Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities to "Advancing Markets for Producers," Eigenbrode said. Asked if the word "Climate" had anything to do with the grant's termination, Eigbenbrode said he didn't know for sure. "That was not said. I'm guessing that it was a problem with the whole program. That's just a guess." An emailed request to the USDA for comment was not immediately answered on Wednesday afternoon. Regardless why it was killed, the termination of the grant now puts Idaho officials in the position of trying to find ways to help the graduate students and others who otherwise were relying on jobs tied to the grant. If it had continued, the grant would have funded an effort to provide money to farmers who grow chickpeas, barley, hops, wheat, potatoes and sugar beats, and raise cattle for beef, to better promote and inform potential buyers of their products, Eigenbrode said. "For example, chickpeas, we are looking at expanding markets for hummus in our nation," he said. "Consumers of hummus are interested in how the chickpeas are grown. "And, we were going to be tapping into the market potential of that," Eigenbrode continued. "The same with potatoes and all the products that would have been produced under our incentives." Of the $59 million, some $33 million, or about 56%, was earmarked to go directly to the farmers as part of the program. In it's letter, the USDA noted that the grant rules were changed and now require 65% of the grant award to go directly to farmers, which Eigenbrode said could present a challenge in its next application. "They said that was the reason it was being terminated," he said of the 65% threshold. "We were in good shape for getting those contracts rolling. This was a huge award." Eigenbrode, who is in his 30th year at UI, noted that the USDA's earlier criteria called only for a majority of funds to go to farmers. More than 200 producers had signed up to be a part of the program from 34 Idaho counties. "It did not specify a percentage. I wanted to give more to producers directly, but when you try to do everything to make something like this work, you need administrative support," he said. "There are management costs for visiting each farm. And, getting soil samples is costly." Eigenbrode noted that simply handing over cash to farmers "would be a misuse of public funds. We were hoping to use those funds to responsibly document what was happening to the benefit of everyone — farmers, consumers and the general public." The effort would have produced a searchable map and data base to show locations of farmers, their crops and the scope of how the grant was being administered. Then word came on Sunday that the grant program was dead. "It was a very short notification message that was clearly like a form letter," Eigenbrode said. "It had our award number in the text, but it otherwise could have gone to anyone."
Yahoo
16-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Federal government terminates University of Idaho climate grant for farmers
A sugar beet field in Kimberly, Idaho. (Courtesy of the University of Idaho) A University of Idaho grant to help Idaho farmers develop climate-smart practices has been terminated. The $59 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities program was the largest in the university's history. Established under the Biden administration, it would have funded the university's Innovative Agriculture and Marketing Partnership project, which opened applications earlier this year. It was a statewide project that would have paid farmers to incorporate practices that reduced the climate impact within Idaho's top commodities including potatoes, sugar beets, wheat, barley, hops, chickpeas and beef. As of March, 201 Idaho producers representing 27 Idaho counties had applied for the grant, according to a press release from the university on Wednesday. But the grant was terminated as the USDA changed its criteria to evaluate climate-smart grants, referred to as 'Farmer First' policy priorities. The new criteria asks that 65% of grant funds go directly to farmers. While more than 50% of the university's proposal went toward payment to farmers — with the remaining funds going toward technical and marketing services for farmers — the project no longer qualifies for the grant under the new criteria. The USDA is rebranding the Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities program, which it called in a press release a 'Biden era climate slush fund,' as the Advancing Markets for Producers initiative. The University of Idaho has the opportunity to resubmit a proposal by June 20 with adjustments to meet the new criteria. 'While we are disappointed by the USDA decision to terminate the IAMP grant, we are thankful for the opportunity to resubmit our proposal,' co-director of the program Sanford Eigenbrode said in a press release. 'The objectives of the IAMP project are in line with the expected guidelines from (the USDA) and their Farmer First priorities, and we are in a good position to reconfigure the project to meet those guidelines.' The USDA committed to honoring all eligible expenses incurred prior to April 13. The University of Idaho said it is in contact with its implementing partners and several producers to ensure any eligible expenses incurred prior to this date are reimbursed. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
